The Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) is set to get a bigger budget allocation as the government is eyeing to tap it to help consolidate farmlands.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. made the announcement during the 125th Founding Anniversary of the Department of Agriculture (DA) last Tuesday, when asked about the role of cooperatives in the development of the agriculture sector.
“We will rely on the Cooperative Development Authority so they can form cooperatives, which still needs to be strengthened,” Marcos told reporters in an interview.
Currently, the concurrent DA secretary said farm cooperatives have an average of 50 to 100 hectares.
“These will be further ‘organized’ so it will be 1,000 to 1,500 hectares per overall organization,” Marcos said.
The chief executive stressed the importance of consolidating farmlands to effectively lower the cost of production in the agriculture sector through mechanization.
“You cannot use the big – for production and post-production – technologies if the farm is too small. That is why the first thing we will do is to consolidate the cooperatives,” Marcos said.
The President said they will be using the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) to provide the needed new equipment to cooperatives to help them boost their production.
“They will be the ones to decide, who among them will be the first to use [the equipment] and where to use it,” Marcos said.
Image credits: Michael Edwards | Dreamstime.com
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Source: News Paper Radio
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